Memories of my grade school days at Wild Rose School, (Neufeld, Mary Jane (Goertzen))
Collection: Wild Rose School
Title
Memories of my grade school days at Wild Rose School, (Neufeld, Mary Jane (Goertzen))
Subject
Harvey County (Kansas)--History
Description
Memories of student of Wild Rose School, District #26
Creator
Neufeld, Mary Jane (Goertzen), student of Wild Rose School, District #26
Source
Leroy Koehn, student of Wild Rose School, District #26
Publisher
Halstead Public Library, 264 Main Street, Halstead, Kansas 67056
Date
Unknown
Contributor
Leroy Koehn, student of Wild Rose School, District #26
Rights
Language
English
Type
Narratives
Coverage
Coverage--Kansas--Harvey County Rural Schools
Citation
Neufeld, Mary Jane (Goertzen), student of Wild Rose School, District #26, “Memories of my grade school days at Wild Rose School, (Neufeld, Mary Jane (Goertzen)),” Halstead Digital History Collections, accessed April 30, 2024, https://halstead.digitalsckls.info/item/87.
Text
Memories of my grade school days at Wild Rose School by Mary Jane (Neufeld) Goertzen
Teachers of one room schools not only taught us our lessons, they were the janitor, hot lunch cook, built a fire in the heating stove, playground supervisor and school principal, etc. I have memories of our teacher oiling the wood floor in the school room before a special community gathering or program in addition to the regular cleaning each day. Students were given jobs to help, one being dusting the blackboard erasers out on the front porch of the school by clapping them together. The boys would stoke the fire with coal while the girls would straighten library books etc. Just before a program our desks got a good cleaning!
I remember Miss Thompson cooking soup on a two burner kerosene stove for a hot lunch. She was stirring soup with one hand and had an open book in the other listening to pupils read their lessons. What a special treat!
Thanksgiving was a special time. Weeks in advance the whole school would have lessons on the pilgrims and Indians resulting in a Thanksgiving dinner with all the students participating with some food item. I remember having special placemats and nut cups all handmade in art class. We also made Indian headbands with real feathers and the pilgrims wore pilgrim hats. We all had either Indian or pilgrim names written on a place card all of us sitting around a table. I remember vividly that my name was "Pocahontas" and there was someone named "Miles Standish."
At Christmastime we decorated the schoolroom by making construction paper chains and other paper decorations for the Christmas tree (no lights, no electricity) and crisscrossing crepe paper from corner to corner and then painstakingly hanging tinsel.
Near the end of the school year our school would go on what we would call a "field trip" today. A trip to Wichita took us to the Cudahy meat packing plant and another year, the Salt Mine and a bottling plant in Hutchinson, just to name a few.
Harvey County Park was the destination for a school picnic with all of us riding in the back of a truck. Mrs. Hansen was our teacher at the time. We had a lot of fun rolling down the "big sand hill" filling our pockets and getting ourselves covered with sand. I came to the realization after all these years that Mrs. Hansen had a bunch of sand covered kids in mind when the mode of transportation returning to school was in the back of that truck!!
Original Format
Paper
Title
Memories of my grade school days at Wild Rose School, (Neufeld, Mary Jane (Goertzen))
Subject
Harvey County (Kansas)--History
Description
Memories of student of Wild Rose School, District #26
Creator
Neufeld, Mary Jane (Goertzen), student of Wild Rose School, District #26
Source
Leroy Koehn, student of Wild Rose School, District #26
Publisher
Halstead Public Library, 264 Main Street, Halstead, Kansas 67056
Date
Unknown
Contributor
Leroy Koehn, student of Wild Rose School, District #26
Rights
Language
English
Type
Narratives
Coverage
Coverage--Kansas--Harvey County Rural Schools
Citation
Neufeld, Mary Jane (Goertzen), student of Wild Rose School, District #26, “Memories of my grade school days at Wild Rose School, (Neufeld, Mary Jane (Goertzen)),” Halstead Digital History Collections, accessed April 30, 2024, https://halstead.digitalsckls.info/item/87.Text
Memories of my grade school days at Wild Rose School by Mary Jane (Neufeld) Goertzen
Teachers of one room schools not only taught us our lessons, they were the janitor, hot lunch cook, built a fire in the heating stove, playground supervisor and school principal, etc. I have memories of our teacher oiling the wood floor in the school room before a special community gathering or program in addition to the regular cleaning each day. Students were given jobs to help, one being dusting the blackboard erasers out on the front porch of the school by clapping them together. The boys would stoke the fire with coal while the girls would straighten library books etc. Just before a program our desks got a good cleaning!
I remember Miss Thompson cooking soup on a two burner kerosene stove for a hot lunch. She was stirring soup with one hand and had an open book in the other listening to pupils read their lessons. What a special treat!
Thanksgiving was a special time. Weeks in advance the whole school would have lessons on the pilgrims and Indians resulting in a Thanksgiving dinner with all the students participating with some food item. I remember having special placemats and nut cups all handmade in art class. We also made Indian headbands with real feathers and the pilgrims wore pilgrim hats. We all had either Indian or pilgrim names written on a place card all of us sitting around a table. I remember vividly that my name was "Pocahontas" and there was someone named "Miles Standish."
At Christmastime we decorated the schoolroom by making construction paper chains and other paper decorations for the Christmas tree (no lights, no electricity) and crisscrossing crepe paper from corner to corner and then painstakingly hanging tinsel.
Near the end of the school year our school would go on what we would call a "field trip" today. A trip to Wichita took us to the Cudahy meat packing plant and another year, the Salt Mine and a bottling plant in Hutchinson, just to name a few.
Harvey County Park was the destination for a school picnic with all of us riding in the back of a truck. Mrs. Hansen was our teacher at the time. We had a lot of fun rolling down the "big sand hill" filling our pockets and getting ourselves covered with sand. I came to the realization after all these years that Mrs. Hansen had a bunch of sand covered kids in mind when the mode of transportation returning to school was in the back of that truck!!
Original Format
Paper